Testing a Mechanical Behavior of Light Reflection (Download the paper)http://worldnpa.org/abstracts/abstracts_paperlink_7098.docWe model photons and atoms as spherical rigid bodies and reproduce numerically the mechanical (Newtonian) interactions between them. ... To analyze the frequency variation of each photon, we assume the photon as being a spherical rigid body within nonuniform internal mass distribution, so that the photon describes a cycloid, as can be seen in Figure 1. Thus, once describing cycloids, our rigid body presents mass, amplitude, frequency and phase, as well as the DeBroglie (1924) wave and becomes a mechanical framework for our study case. To simulate this internal non-homogeneous mass distribution, we used a spherical rigid body [having] holes [off-center] so that its centroid and its center of mass are not coincident. Thus, while the center of mass describes a straight line, the centroid describes a cycloid.

A new optical device converts photon spin into a more exotic type of angular momentum.http://physics.aps.org/story/v17/st15Physicists have known for a century that a light beam can carry angular as well as linear momentum, but about 15 years ago they learned that this rotation comes in two distinct forms.

Physicists have sent a beam of twisted light 3km through the air above Viennahttp://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29953239This twisting property could allow very fast communication because light with different amounts of twist, encoding separate channels of information, could be sent simultaneously.

To create a field as close as possible to critical, the 20-physicist collaboration started with a short-pulse glass laser that packs a half-trillion watts of power into a beam measuring just 6 micrometers across at its narrowest point, resulting in extraordinary intensities. To increase the energy of the photons, the team collided the pulses with SLAC's 30-micrometer-wide pulsed beam of high-energy electrons--a feat that required precise alignment and synchronization. When laser photons collided head-on with the electrons, they got a huge energy boost, much like ping-pong balls hitting a speeding Mack truck, changing them from visible light to very high energy gamma rays. Because of the laser's intensity, these backscattered gamma photons sometimes encountered several incoming laser photons simultaneously; a collision with four of them concentrated enough energy in one place to produce electron-positron pairs.

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Most of the paper supports QED yet virtual becomes reality during these high energy events..

Ciaolo wrote:So, 1 gamma-ray photon is hit by 4 laser photons. This produces an electron and an anti electron.Is there any other explanation apart from "enough energy in one place"?

I can read it the same way you can. That may be a mistake - four photons hit an electron, becoming backscattered gamma radiation. The gamma photons experience sufficient simultaneous collisions with laser photons to produce electron/positron pairs. The mainstream theory gets ever more stretched.

Airman, why wouldn't you be surprised if there have been other claims of photons forming matter? Since most scientists seem to accept that photons don't have mass, would they still be able to imagine photons becoming matter? If so, would it be by supposing that angular momentum can become mass? Or do most scientists suppose that photons don't have angular momentum either? How can anything have momentum if it doesn't have mass?

I've always believed that everything was light. I'm sure I'm not alone. I just couldn't defend the idea "scientifically". My big problem was that photons are lost in high numbers in thermal-like reactions - how could matter possibly reconstitute itself?

All matter is photons. Miles' theory - including photon recycling - presents us with a new physics, indeed a new reality. Not just scientists and engineers, but also many others will be attracted to a theory that simplifies the universe..